Mum's Birthday Dinner

My mum's birthday was earlier this month, and as is my tradition I made her a birthday dinner of her choosing. She had been out for lunch with some friends that day (I am happy to report she ordered a vegan grilled salad as her main there), so we were aiming for a fairly light dinner.

Carrot Cashew Pate from But I Could Never Go Vegan: I served this as the first course, and made it the day before so that it would have lots of time set up in the fridge, poured into a gladwrap lined bowl. It was still very soft the next day, so go with care. This was a very savoury and more-ish kind of dip, and you will have a hard time not going back for more. I served it with some bagel crisps I bought from the shop.
Rating: :)



BBQ Cauliflower Salad with Zesty Ranch Dressing from But I Could Never Go Vegan: For the main I chose a salad... but not just any salad. This has a few components to put together. I made the BBQ sauce recipe from this book a few days before, and it is a great BBQ sauce! The BBQ sauce recipe says it will make 4 cups, but I only got two and a half (I only needed 1 for this recipe). The BBQ sauce is then used to coat roasted cauliflower, and then roasted some more. My sauce didn't completely dry on the cauliflower, but it was fine. The cauliflower sits on top of a salad of lettuce, avocado, corn and tomatoes (my mum didn't add avocado to her one because she is tragically intolerant) that has been tossed with the Zesty Ranch Dressing. This is a cashew based dressing that you blend up. I had to add a bit more water to it, and it didn't go 100% smooth in my mini food processor, but it was creamy and tangy to the taste. Of course the crowning glory of this salad is the Crispy Baked Onion Rings. This was my first time making onion rings, and I was very happy with the result. I only needed a half quantity of the dipping and coating stuff to coat my single onion. I also forgot to spritz them with oil before I put them in the oven, but they still baked up nice and crisp.
Rating: Salad :D, BBQ Sauce :D, Ranch Dressing :), Onion Rings :)





Mint Chocolate Birthday Cake with Glossy Ganache from Keep It Vegan: This comes together easily, but be warned about the delicious moist cake! Delicious moist cake is good, except that I made it the day before and then tried to slice it in half the next day to fill with the peppermint buttercream and it was extremely fragile. It is OK though, because ganache covers all! I like that Aine has a very sensible, thin layer of icing, which is really all the cake needs to give it a minty kick. The buttercream calls for two teaspoons of peppermint extract, but I only used one and it was definitely minty enough (I used Queen's Natural Peppermint). The ganache also makes exactly the right amount to nicely top and cover the cake. It was a really nice cake.
Rating: :)





Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Our beautiful family cat Possum, who is no longer with us.